The Hitting Report breaks a swing down into its key checkpoints and metrics, and provides a detailed summary of swing performance. This article explains what appears on each page of the report and how to read it.
What You Receive After Processing
A processed hitting assessment produces three outputs:
PDF Summary Report — the multi-page report described here.
Overlay Video (.mp4) — your swing video with full-body tracking, a colour-coded performance timeline, and summary data overlaid on the footage.
Data Summary File (.json) — for API users, containing input and processing data, subject information, video parameters, and the analysis summary.
How to Read the Colour Bands
Most metrics in the report appear on a colour-coded scale:
Green — great performance
Yellow — moderate performance
Red — an area for improvement
Each metric displays its name, the athlete's value with units, and the minimum and maximum of the range at either end of the bar (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Example metric with colour-ranges indicating performance. The metric name is on the top, metric value prominently below, and the min/max ranges are on either end of the bar. The black line and arrow indicate that athlete's performance on that metric.
Where the bands come from: they are generated from our database of players at every level, from amateur to professional. A band is a population reference, not a true pass or fail at that metric.
Page 1: Hitting Mechanics Overview
The first page gives a high-level mechanics and performance summary built around four checkpoints in the swing. A screenshot from your video is displayed at each one, showing whole-body posture at that instant.
Checkpoint | Definition |
Pelvis Moving Forward (PEL) | The point at which the pelvis starts to move forward. |
Hands Moving Forward (HND) | The point at which the hands start to move forward. |
Contact Frame (CF) | The point of estimated ball contact. |
Maximum Arm Extension (ME) | Maximum arm extension through the post-contact phase. |
A note on ball contact: the system tracks human movement only. It does not see the ball. The contact frame, along with a contact range, is estimated from the athlete's kinematics.
Advanced Metrics
Metric | Unit | What it Measures |
Hand speed | mph | Peak hand speed across the entire swing. |
Stride length | inches | Step length at heel strike, measured from the start position. |
Time to contact | ms | Time elapsed between heel strike and the contact frame. |
Page 2: Sequencing and Translation Metrics
Kinematic Sequencing
Kinematic sequencing is the order and relative timing of key events through the swing, and it indicates how well power transfers through the body. Strong hitters transfer power from the ground up: energy moves through the pelvis, into the torso, then through the arms and hands to ball contact. Four events are ranked:
Peak pelvis rotational velocity
Peak torso rotational velocity
Peak arm rotational velocity
Hand rotational velocity
The report presents this three ways:
A sequencing plot with time-varying data for pelvis, torso, arms and hands.
Sequence indicators ranking each segment by the order in which it peaked.
A Sequencing score out of 100, where higher values mean better transfer of power through the whole swing.
Translation Metrics
Where sequencing covers rotation, translation metrics describe the linear mechanics of the swing — how the body moves through space rather than around an axis.
Metric | Unit | What it Measures |
Stance width | inches | Distance between the feet at heel strike. |
Stride depth | inches | Fore and aft distance travelled by the lead foot between the start position and heel strike. |
Pelvis sway | inches | Amount of linear pelvis translation toward the pitcher. |
Shoulder slope | deg | Front-to-rear shoulder slope angle through the swing. |
Head translation | inches | Amount of linear head translation toward the pitcher. |
Performance Score
The page closes with the overall Performance Score, a composite measure /100 of the athlete's performance across the swing.
Page 3: Joint Angles
The third page shows how joint angles change continuously across the swing. Body segments and rotation sequences follow International Society of Biomechanics (ISB) standards for a full-body model. Time-varying plots are grouped into two sets:
Upper Body — elbow extension, shoulder abduction, neck rotation.
Core and Lower Body — trunk flexion, trunk rotation, lead knee flexion, pelvis rotation, hip-shoulder separation.
Why it Matters
Checkpoint metrics capture single moments in time during the swing. Joint angle plots show what happens between them, which can provide nuance and context to the movement.
Page 4: Joint Velocities
The fourth page shows the angular velocity of those same joint angles across the swing, grouped the same way into Upper Body and Core and Lower Body. Where the angle plots show position, these show how fast each joint is moving, which is what underlies the sequencing analysis on page 2.
Need Help?
If you have any further questions, our support team is happy to assist.
Contact Support: support@3motionai.com